“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” -Thomas Jefferson

Power Line – A classless, limp and boring speech

President Obama’s Oval Office speech on the termination of combat operations in Iraq was so half-hearted and detached, it was a little hard to discern its true meaning. I don’t think anyone has captured the nature of Obama’s discussion of President Bush better than Paul Mirengoff. Paul relegated this observation to an update in “Sometimes the past really is a foreign country,” but it deserves to be highlighted:

In his speech, Obama was his slippery self when it came to President Bush. He acknowledged that Bush is patriotic and cares about the troops — how big of Obama — but gave him no credit for the surge or for liberating Iraq and the region from Saddam Hussein (who went unmentioned).